IDE Integration and Workflows¶

Supported Editors¶

Copilot ships official extensions or plugins for the following environments.

Setup in your IDE - Installation guide

Installation Flow¶

General steps (VS Code shown):

1. Install the GitHub Copilot extension
2. Install the GitHub Copilot Chat extension
3. Sign in to GitHub in the editor
4. Authorize the extension to access your GitHub account
5. Verify a seat is assigned (Free, Pro, Business, or Enterprise)

VS Code Feature Map¶

• Ghost text for completions in any supported language
• Chat view in the primary side bar
• Inline chat at the cursor (Ctrl+I)
• Terminal chat in the integrated terminal (Ctrl+I)
• Quick chat - Ctrl+Shift+I
• Agents - @workspace, @vscode, @terminal, @github
• Context variables - #file, #selection, #codebase, #web
• Commands via Command Palette: "Copilot: ..."
• Source Control - generate commit message icon

JetBrains Feature Map¶

• Completions while typing
• Chat tool window
• Inline chat via editor context menu
• Slash commands and agents similar to VS Code (subset may vary)

Copilot in Visual Studio 2022+¶

• Completions and chat
• Chat pane integrated with the solution
• Context includes open documents and solution files

Copilot in GitHub Mobile¶

• Conversational chat with access to GitHub.com data
• Ask about notifications, issues, PRs, and repo summaries
• Useful for reviewing on the go

Copilot CLI¶

Installation¶

gh extension install github/gh-copilot

Confirm:

gh copilot --version

Commands¶

# Natural language to command
gh copilot suggest "how do I list all files modified in the last 24 hours?"

# Explain an existing command
gh copilot explain "grep -Rni --include='*.py' 'TODO' ."

Use flags to force shell, git, or gh CLI target:

gh copilot suggest -t shell "unzip all .gz files in a folder"
gh copilot suggest -t git "squash the last 3 commits into one"
gh copilot suggest -t gh "list my open PRs"

Copilot in the CLI - CLI docs

Copilot on GitHub.com¶

Global Chat¶

Click the Copilot button in the header to open chat. Ask general questions, or reference a specific repo.

Repo Chat¶

On a repository page, chat is scoped to that repo and can reason about its structure, docs, and code.

Issues and PRs¶

• Summarize a long issue thread
• Draft a PR description based on the diff (Enterprise)
• Comment on PRs where Copilot is a reviewer (Enterprise)

Copilot Extensions¶

Copilot Extensions extend chat with third-party or internal services. They are installed from the Copilot Extensions Marketplace.

Examples: - @sentry - Query Sentry errors from chat - @mongodb - Query MongoDB docs and sample data - @stripe - Generate Stripe API code and answer billing questions

Custom extensions are built as GitHub Apps exposing an Agent endpoint.

Copilot Extensions - Marketplace

Copilot Workspace¶

A task-centric environment (currently preview/limited) that takes an issue and drafts a plan, implementation, and PR. Designed for end-to-end issue-to-PR workflows.

Typical Workflows¶

Feature Development¶

1. Create an issue
2. Open the repo in your IDE; open key files in tabs for context
3. Write a function signature; let Copilot ghost text fill the body
4. Ask chat /tests to generate tests for the selection
5. Run tests; if red, run /fix
6. Use Copilot to draft a PR summary (Enterprise)
7. Request Copilot as a reviewer (Enterprise)

Debugging¶

1. Select the failing function
2. /explain to understand it
3. /fix to propose a correction
4. Run tests; iterate

Documentation¶

1. Select an API module
2. /doc to generate docstrings
3. Ask chat to generate a README section with examples

DevOps¶

1. Ask chat to generate a GitHub Actions workflow for CI
2. Ask for a multi-stage Dockerfile
3. Ask for Terraform for a specific cloud resource
4. Explain complex shell pipelines with gh copilot explain

MCP (Model Context Protocol) Support¶

Copilot Chat supports the Model Context Protocol, letting local MCP servers provide tools to chat. Admins can enable or disable MCP via policy in Business and Enterprise.

Key Exam Facts¶

• Install order: Copilot extension, then Copilot Chat extension, then sign in
• gh copilot requires gh extension install github/gh-copilot
• Copilot on GitHub.com has global, repo, issue, and PR contexts
• Copilot Extensions are installed via the Marketplace as GitHub Apps
• MCP is policy-controlled in Business and Enterprise

Study Checklist¶

• I can install Copilot in VS Code end to end
• I can install and use gh copilot suggest and gh copilot explain
• I can describe the chat surfaces on github.com
• I know what Copilot Extensions are and where to find them
• I can run a full feature workflow (issue to PR) using Copilot